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Aromatic Syrup Rhubarb

A syrup made by infusing rhubarb, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg powders with alcohol and mixing with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Aromatic Syrup Rhubarb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tincture

  1. Mix the rhubarb, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg powders together.

  2. Moisten the mixture with 2 ounces of dilute alcohol.

  3. Place the mixture in a conical percolator and pour dilute alcohol over it until 1 pint of tincture has passed.

Finish the syrup

  1. Heat the syrup and mix it thoroughly with the tincture.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Rhubarb + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Rhubarb + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb powder
Provides the characteristic bitter and aromatic flavour that carries through the syrup.
Cloves powder
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the syrup.
Cinnamon powder
Adds warm, sweet aroma and depth of flavour.
Nutmeg powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the syrup.

The step that matters

Percolating the tincture. Pouring dilute alcohol through the powders must be steady and even so the solvent extracts flavour uniformly. Stopping at the measured pint keeps the tincture's strength consistent from batch to batch.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, syrup):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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